‘Scarface’ Mobile Game Review

Scarface for iOS works a lot better as an unintended comedy than it does as a tribute to the iconic 1983 film. It’s every bit as boorish and money-hungry as Al Pacino’s Tony Montana character. The game is free to play, but it just wants what’s coming to it — Your wallet, chico, and everything in it.

After we loaded it up, the first thing it asked us to do was rate it 5 stars so it could keep creating great content for us, then it sent us directly to the rating screen without our approval. It took a little while, but we found a way to exit without rating the game. Lucky for the developer, because we would have capped it with a 1-star rating just for being so presumptuous.

Soon afterward it was asking us to download the Scarface movie. Eventually, as we dug into the FarmVille/Mafia Wars-like city builder, we ran out of money we needed to upgrade a new building. That’s when we clicked on the in-game store, which offered an array of ways to exchange real cash for pretend in-game blood money. One option asked us to plunk down $50. We clicked through, hoping it was some kind of joke, but nope. The publisher is hoping some sucker gets caught up in the moment and is willing to fall victim to extortion.

For that reason alone, it’s tough to recommend keeping the game on your device. It’s not worth the risk of and incorrect click and finding yourself $50 in the hole. Granted, you’ll have to enter your password to complete the purchase, but why even entertain the danger?

At least it’s possible to accumulate all the cash you need by hammering your way through the game’s brain dead tap-and-win missions. It’s funny to hear audio samples from the movie as you tap the screen and make Tony complete drug deals, lay some beatdowns, deliver contraband and — for some bizarre reason — occasionally stalk women on the beach.

As you plow through missions, you create businesses, add on to your mansion and fortify your empire. It’s your very own Tony Montana Barbie dream house village, and you can tweak it to your content.

Like Tony and his self-destructive moxie, we’ve got to hand it to the developer for having the stones to go through with a game like this. But after we’ve said hello to this little friend of Tony’s, we’d prefer to take its advice and watch the movie instead.

RATING: 4.5/10

Scarface (Free to play), available on iOS platforms, was published by Fuse Powered, Inc., which provided a code for our review. We played the game for two hours.